You lose your individuality a huge amount when you have no money, and I certainly had that experience.

It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might has well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.

Why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me.

Failure means a stripping away of the inessential.

The fame thing is interesting because I never wanted to be famous, and I never dreamt I would be famous.